A funny thing happened on the way here tonight...

Product / Quality Manager
Hutchinsons (NZ) Ltd.
Level 4, ASB Building
136 Broadway
Newmarket
Auckland

Dear Sir / Madam:

RE: Trident Chopped Italian tomatoes with chilli and garlic 400g

Please find enclosed the debris I discovered [it shall henceforth be known as 'It'] in a can of the abovementioned product. I had purchased the can [from Patels Superette in Aro Street, Te Aro, Wellington] in order to cook a lovely romantic Italian meal for the lady I am wooing. Somehow It managed to remain undetected throughout the entire process of cooking the meal. However, you can imagine the hilarity [mine, short-lived] that ensued when, upon serving the meal, It appeared on the top of the food on my date's plate, looking so much like some sort of large weird green spider. She, predictably, shrieked and made for the hinterland [well, the bathroom] from which it took some coaxing to entice her. Sadly and needless to say, dinner was a write-off.

I have an assurance from the lady in question that, after an appropriate period, she will consider returning for another meal. Unfortunately she has suggested that we see other people in the interim. Apparently it's for the best.

I hope this story of woe brings you some light-relief.

Best wishes,

Stephen Clover.

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Postscript: If you needed to know, It was a not-insubstantial fleshy eight-fingered tomato stalk. My date's reaction was not unreasonable, either; according to the London Mail a green-grocer recently found a black fat-tailed scorpion in a shipment of bananas and mangoes from Pakistan. The man mistook the creature, said to be the third most deadly animal on Earth, to be a tomato stalk before realising what it was. He proceeded promptly to terrorise several passing children with it, before losing it on the No. 7 bus.

If anyone can help with comprehension as to why a pet-store is selling black fat-tailed scorpions on-line and providing breeding, propogation and care instructions for them, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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UPDATE: reply here.